Watching Yesterday
by Reina-183
Summary: SR friendship, SK. Because sometimes you don't realize how much you need something until it's already broken irreparably, and all you can do is gather the broken pieces.


Watching Yesterday

You can't change the past, and you can't predict the future. You can only live to regret what you've done, and wish that you don't make the same mistakes again.

I wish I hadn't been so hard on you.

I wish I could've understood you, and what you went through.

I wish I would've been there for you.

But I didn't, I couldn't, and I wasn't, and now all I can do is sit here and hold your hand as you fade away from me with each beep of the monitor.

You always told me there are three things you are confronted with in this world: the things that you should do, the things that you can do, and the things that you actually do.

You said your one regret in this life was that your last choice didn't very often match the other two.

You could always make me laugh like that. You could always ruffle my hair and make me smile, or grin at me, and soon I'd be smiling back twice as brightly.

You told me that you were jealous of me. That all those times we fought and you beat me that you wanted to be me. I told you that I was jealous of you, and you only laughed.

Why would I be jealous of you?

I was straight. I fell in love with the perfect girl. You weren't. You never did find that perfect guy.

I was a good Samaritan. I saved animals and sent them to the humane center. You hated animals.

I was a church going teenager who read the bible every night. You swore off religion.

I spoke out for abstinence. You had sex before you turned sixteen.

I was pro-life. You didn't care.

I struggled but got good grades and got into college. You was smart but lazy and barely got your diploma.

I lived the American dream. You _lived._

You were the sensitive jock that read poetry and picked flowers. You were the popular boy who always plopped down next to the scrawny boy studying for a test during lunch.

You were the shoulder we could cry on, even when you had no one to go to. You were a splotch of the deepest black in our whitewash world. You were a candle in a dark world.

You were strong. I was weak.

You saw the world in shades of gray. I saw it in black and white.

You could sympathize with a murderer and blame a church going woman. I could only hate what I was taught to hate.

You could make up your own world, your own bible. I had to have it set before me.

You wondered why I was jealous of you. I will never understand why you were jealous of _me._

I spent Saturday gardening with my mom and doing my homework. You spent it protesting at rallies and having fun.

I lived life walking the line of perfection. Did I do anything wrong? Did I make a mistake? Why wasn't I doing as well as I wanted?

You were so far off the line you wouldn't be able to find it again if you wanted to.

_Beep… Beep… Beep… Beep…_

And now you're lying here, surrounded by machinery my superb college education didn't teach me, and you're dying. You used to be so much stronger than I am, but your weak, pale fingers can barely clutch mine.

You used to be so healthy. Now you have deep black circles under your eyes and pale, frigid blue lips.

You used to be beautiful, and you _still are._

"Hang on, Riku! You can make it. Please…" But you're not listening to me anymore. Your eyes are closed, the lashes fluttering occasionally as you try to wake from your drug induced coma. Riku, you always were stubborn. You wouldn't want to go like this, lying in a bed like a pathetic old man.

Then those eyes, beautiful green eyes, fluttered open, and your lips formed familiar words.

"Sora?" Your voice, weak as it is, still holds disbelief. I haven't been here for him for so long. Why would you think I was coming back now?

"I'm here Riku. I'm not leaving you." I tighten my grip on your hand in a bruising grip. It's the only reassurance I have that the ghost like boy in front of me is really still here. I need you to still be here, if only for a moment.

"Tell me a story, Sora?" You ask, like you used to ask Ms. Aerith when we were younger. When we were children, with no cares in the world except building the ultimate sandcastle and avoiding the cooties.

"Once upon a time…" I begin, and pause when your eyes close again. This is so hard. Why does it have to be you, my best friend? If there is a god, what did you ever do wrong? Is liking other boys such a sin that God has to take you away from the only world you've ever known? The only place you've ever loved?

"Once upon a time there were two little boys who liked to play on the beach..."

_One was a little boy with spiky hair and big blue eyes. He was standing on his favorite island, Paopu Island, crawling further along the branch to try and reach the Paopu fruit at the end. It looked so yummy and Sora was too hungry to ignore it._

"_Hey! Get out of my tree!" A childish, whiny voice called. Sora turned and saw a little boy with big eyes the color of the ocean and hair the color of his mother's jewelry._

"_This isn't your tree," Sora pouted, clinging to the branch. Riku shook his head almost violently, the long strands flying everywhere._

"_Uh huh, look over there!" And Sora followed the childishly plump finger over to an old rickety sign that read 'Paopu Island.' except now the Paopu was crossed out, and written sloppily in red crayon was the word 'Riku,' with the K facing the wrong way._

"_This isn't your tree! This is wiku's twee!" When Sora got angry, he always slurred his Rs._

"_You stupid head! I AM Riku!"_

_Sora's eyes widened in understanding._

"_Now get out of my tree!" Riku demanded, crossing his arms and glaring. Sora shook his head._

"_I can't!" He shouted back at the other boy._

"_Why not?" Riku asked, a sneer crossing his face. "Are you stuck or something?"_

_Sora nodded. "Yeah, and I want my mommy!"_

"But Sora's mother didn't have to come, because Riku climbed into the tree and saved him. Then, after that, Sora and Riku hung out at that tree everyday until they became best friends. Still, with only the two of them, it got kind of boring. That's when she came. The girl with beautiful red hair."

_Kairi glared at the boys drawing happily in their cave. She wanted to draw too, but she didn't have any chalk!_

"_Hey, let me use some," she whined, pouting. Sora shook his head, guarding his chalk with a similar pout on his face._

"_I want some chalk," Kairi complained, her eyes watery for a second before she burst into tears._

"_Here," Riku handed her a stick of pink chalk._

"_Thankies!" Kairi yelled, hopping up and down, clutching the pink chalk to her chest._

"_Nah, don't thank me. Your crying was getting kinda annoying, and I don't like pink anyways."_

"But Kairi and Sora could see that Riku was really a good person. They knew that he gave her the chalk because he wanted her to be happy."

I tightened my grip on your fingers. You weren't gripping back as much anymore. It was only a matter of time before you couldn't grip my hand at all.

"Sora, Kairi, and Riku became inseparable, like the three musketeers. Then they got to high school, and somehow everything went wrong. It was my freshman year, your sophomore year, and the only class we had together was gym. The argument was so stupid, I can't even remember what we were arguing over…"

Your voice could barely constitute a whisper when you answer.

"I was a captain choosing teams… I didn't pick you…Or something like that…"

I chuckled slightly, even as my eyes watered with barely contained tears. "Or Something like that…"

"_God Riku! That was so… So Gay!" Sora yelled, holding his books to his chest. Riku glared at him before pushing the smaller boy backwards. Over the years, Riku had grown to be tall and muscular, while Sora was still a shrimp. _

_Sora dropped all his books, papers scattering all over the floor. _

"_Go to hell!" Riku told him, his voice a low growl. His long bangs covered his eyes, and Sora missed the expression on his face as he turned and ran down the hall._

_Sora muttered angrily under his breath as he tried to gather his scattered papers._

"_I'll get these," Kairi smiled at him, her eyes twinkling. "A friendship like yours is worth more than a few papers, right?"_

_Sora smiled, relieved at Kairi's kind words. Getting up, he chased after his best friend. Riku always went to a certain part of the school when he was angry. All Sora had to do was catch him there._

_Riku was leaning against the wall of a deserted hall, on hand clenching it tightly as the other one cupped his mouth, covering his violent coughing._

_Sora's world seemed to stop for a moment as Riku slid to his knees, a trail of blood at the corner of his mouth._

"_Riku!" He shouted, running towards his friend._

"_Get away!" Riku shouted back angrily, wiping his mouth clean. "I'm mad at you and I don't want you here!"_

_Still, Sora rushed towards his friend. "Riku, why are you coughing up blood?"_

"_I'm not!" Riku insisted, slinging his book bag over his shoulder._

"_Riku, what's wrong with you?"_

"_Nothing's wrong with me Sora! If you were a real friend you'd just leave me alone and stop asking questions!"_

_And then Riku ran off again, but Sora believed him. After all, nothing could harm infallible Riku. It wasn't possible. _

_Little did Sora know that Riku was dying. That Riku was _born _dying._

"And so Riku and Sora didn't talk for a week, and Kairi supported us both. And then, when I finally decided to apologize, I found you making out with another boy. I was scared, and confused, and I hurt you."

You squeezed my hand reassuringly, a silent plead to keep going.

"And on that day, I lost both my best friends…"

"_Kairi, Riku's gay!" Sora was panting, having run all the way to Kairi's house to tell her the horrible news._

"_So?" Kairi asked, clearly confused._

"_That's so _wrong_!" Sora exclaimed. Kairi snorted._

"_Love is love, isn't it?" She had asked._

"_Not when it's between a boy and a boy or a girl and a girl!"_

_Kairi just looked at him. Then she turned around and walked away._

"_Kairi, where are you going?" Sora asked, stunned at his friend's stupidity. She went to the same church he did. Didn't she know that being gay was a one way ticket to hell?_

"_I'm going to hang out with Riku, because I'd rather hang out with a guy who's gay then with a guy who sentences people to Hell. That right is reserved for god and god alone."_

"And Kairi was right, but I was too stupid know anything, Riku. I stopped talking to you, stopped talking to Kairi because she talked to you. Then, she moved off the island, and I had lost my chance and I was alone."

Your eye were closed now, and your ragged breathing was getting softer, slower. You're leaving, I know, but please hold on a little longer, just until I finish my story, our story.

"I didn't see you for years, Riku, not until our five year high school reunion. I was married to a woman I didn't love with children I didn't want. I still am, though she is a good person, despite dealing with my faults."

_What was he doing here? Sora's eyes zoned in on Riku, dancing with Selphie on the other end of the dance floor._

"_What are you doing here?" He asked, frowning at his ex-friend. Riku rolled his eyes._

"_I graduated here, the same as you, Sora," Riku shot back. Sora glared at him._

"_I thought only successful people came to their reunions," Sora snapped, referring to the fact that Riku had barely scraped passing marks in high school._

_Riku had grinned at him._

"_I am successful. I'm more successful than you'll ever be."_

"I was so mad at you," I admitted for the first time, squeezing your hand as hard as I could. You're going to have bruises when you get to heaven. "It was because you were right. And I was so mad at you because I had made all the 'right' choices, and I was miserable, and you had made the 'wrong' ones, and you were happy."

A small, victorious smile passed over your face, an 'I told you so, Sora.' With a shaky hand, I reach forward and brush your long bangs from your face. Your hair used to be such a brilliant shade of silver. Now it's dead, a flat gray.

You never told me you were sick. I understand, you didn't want pity. Still, to live everyday knowing you wouldn't live to reach thirty. How hard that must have been, how sad. I wish I could've been there for you instead of wallowing in my own self pity.

How I wished I could have forgiven you for a sin you never committed. You forgave me as soon as I grabbed your hand in this cold hospital room.

Then, Kairi called me. I recognized her instantly, even after all those years her voice had barely changed. You were out of time, she said, out of life.

You had a disease, a genetic one that had been mostly recessive until you. That's why your hair was such an unnatural shade, that's why you were coughing up blood in the hallway.

You, infallible Riku, were dying. It wasn't plausible.

"And then, I forgave you, and I came rushing to your side. Here I am Riku. Here I am."

I vaguely registered the beeping as it stopped, more focused on your hand as it lost its loose grip on mine. Your face looked so incredibly peaceful for a moment before every expression faded away. It was at that point I knew that you were gone. They could try and resuscitate you for a million years and it wouldn't work because your heart, the part of you that made you Riku, was gone.

It felt like a dagger had stabbed my heart repeatedly. I cried for you, gasping for breath. They say real crying is like real sex: messy, not pretty.

My tears splashed onto the cold hard floor and I sank to my knees. Over the next years of my life, I would lose my wife and my mother, but it never hurt as much as watching you die.

Nothing could ever compare to watching your life slip away from you, and knowing I had lost so many years with you because of close minded stupidity.

I never loved you romantically, but I can say that what we had was deeper than what most lovers achieve. Our destroyed friendship meant more to me than anything else. You were my first friend, and my best friend. It was something special, that can only happen once in your life, if you're lucky enough. I was lucky enough, but I let go, and I let you drift away.

I didn't go to your funeral. I didn't want to see your dead body being lowered into the ground and buried beneath fake plastic grass.

Years pass, and I try to live a life that would make you proud. I quit my day job and became a photographer for some nature magazine, traveling all over the world.

I remarried after my wife died, though Kairi proposed to me, not the other way around. Our wedding was hardly traditional, but then again, Kairi's hardly traditional. She's more than traditional. I'd like to think that you'd be happy for me, but I don't really know.

And I watched every sunrise I could and smiled during the spring. I picked flowers and read poetry and flicked off the world once or twice.

I breathed in the fresh spring air and had snowball fights during the winter. Then again, you never saw snow, did you? It's beautiful, Riku. It reminds me of your hair.

Now, I'm lying here. My hair had long since lost its spikiness and turned gray, not silver like yours, but gray. I have wrinkles on my face and grandchildren surrounding me. Kairi's holding my hand, her hair just as gray as mine but her face much more youthful. I love her, and I'm happy I'm dying first, because as selfish as it is, I don't want to feel the pain of loosing her.

Beckoning my youngest grandson (he looks like Kairi, with gorgeous red hair and violet eyes) to my bedside, I smile and grip his hand like you gripped mine so long ago.

"Riku," yes, I asked his parents to name him after you, "there are three things you are confronted with in this world: things you should do, things you can do, and the things you actually do. My only regret in life is that I did more of the last one than the first two."

The End


End file.
